[Community-Discuss] Announcement for Final Candidate Slate for Open Seat on AFRINIC Governance Committee

[Owen DeLong]

Noah,

The key issue that you are either missing or choosing to ignore is that there is a seat where nomcom slated only one candidate. 

The combination of board action to remove none of the above from slate and this singable candidate slate by nomcom creates a situation where members can either support the candidate chosen by the nomcom or abstain. There is no ability for members to say “no, this person should not get a board seat.”

This candidate would technically be treated as elected (although as Sander pointed out, calling it an election is questionable at best) and instead of the short term would effectively have a full 3 year term circumventing the intent of the electoral process. 

This sets a horrible precedent that would effectively allow a simple majority of the board to self-appoint directors to three year terms through this abuse of the electoral process. 

This is a structural error in the bylaws that should be addressed. The simplest fix would be to require board and nomcom to slate at least n+1 candidates for each race. (E.g. a minimum of 6 candidates for a vote for 5 race, 2 candidates for a vote for one race, etc. )

Restoration of none of the above is another alternative. There are many other solutions as well. The point is that this is a problem that the community and the board should look to fix. 

Owen


> On Jun 4, 2019, at 05:46, Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Tue, 4 Jun 2019, 15:15 Sander Steffann, <sander at steffann.nl> wrote:
>> Hi Noah,
>> 
>> > Read the bylaws especially section 13.8
>> 
>> When there is no candidate then the current director will be re-appointed.
> 
> 
> 
> You missed the word "eligible" candidate! 
> 
> Nomcom has since slated eligible candidate and candidates with different slates having one or more candidate and candidates nominated.
> 
>> Appointed != Elected.
> 
> 
> There are upcoming elections scheduled where we members will be casting votes for various candidates.
> 
> 
>> 
>> >> No election -> no Directors
>> > 
>> > Board can appoint.
>> 
>> True. My statement was exaggerated. My apologies.
>> 
>> An appointed board does not have a mandate from the members though, and for a bottom-up community ending up with more appointed than elected board members would not be good.
> 
> 
> We have elections coming up soon and we intend to elect otherwise the board would have to appoint or reappoint as its within its powers.
> 
> 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Sander
> 
> 
> Noah
>> 
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